The present invention relates to recording and compiling statistics from sporting events, and more particularly to a system for recording sports statistics contemporaneously with the occurrence of the events being recorded.
At all levels of sporting competition, statistics commonly are kept which reflect the performance of a team and/or individual performers. Statistics taken from a single game or match have many possible applications, such as keeping a continuously updated account of a player's performance over the course of an athletic season. Statistics typically reflect which player did what in terms of scoring, defense, mistakes, penalties, and the like.
In addition to statistics, ideally records are kept of how and from where a player made a play reflected in the player's statistics, since this better memorializes the events of the game being recorded. However, if the game events occur too quickly one after another, it is difficult to record all of the details which ideally would be recorded for each play. Due to time constraints, it is especially difficult to record a description of how or from where a player or team made a given play.
Various systems, both computerized and manual, for recording statistics are commonly used in different sports. For example, in a football game, typically two spotters watch each play and identify relevant statistical information, such as the name of the ball carrier and the yardage gained or lost. The spotters orally relay the information to a computer operator stationed at a computer terminal. The computer operator then manually inputs the information into the computer. In this manner, a record of each play of the game is generated. Although such a system is relatively slow, it is feasible in football because of the substantial time lapse between plays in a football game.
In other sports, however, such a system cannot be used because it is too slow. For example, in basketball, often there is no time lapse between plays, and recordable events often occur one immediately after another, such as a rebound after a missed shot. In basketball, recording of statistics is performed manually on paper. Manual recording in basketball takes two forms: a shot chart and a score sheet. A shot chart essentially is a map of the basketball court. The statistician makes a record of the approximate location of every shot, the identity of the player taking the shot, and the result of the shot, by making marks on a shot chart. With a score sheet, the statistician marks down non-shooting statistics as they occur.
Manual recording, however, is problematic in that it is too slow to allow for detailed recording of all events in a given sequence. For instance, a statistician might not have time to manually record all details of a sequence in which the home team's center misses a jump shot from just inside the free throw line and slightly to the left of the basket, whereafter the rebound is grabbed by one of the home team's forwards, who subsequently misses a layup, gets his own rebound and then makes a layup. Furthermore, even if manual recording were to result in successful recordation of all desired statistics and descriptions, the handmade record would be neither neat nor in a format convenient for a reader.